Thyssenkrupp in talks to boost steel output capacity in India

Thyssenkrupp, the German engineering giant with interests in high-grade electrical steel manufacturing in India, is in talks with the Indian government to explore possibilities for expanding its production capacity, a top company executive said.

“We are in discussions internally as well as with the government and other authorities about a possible capacity expansion in the country. Now, we are evaluating investment possibilities in case we want to expand here. We are also investigating whether we can find logical participation here with the help of Indian institutions and the government. The fact is that the necessity for the Indian market is absolutely there,” said Georgios Giovanakis, chief executive of Thyssenkrupp Electrical Steel GmbH, said in an interview. “At our plant in Nasik, we have enough land and supporting infrastructure for expansion. Hence, that is not a problem for us,” he added.

Currently, the company has an annual capacity to produce 50,000 tonnes of electrical steel per annum, which is a small percentage of the country’s requirement. India imports about 400,000 tonnes of electrical steel.

The company, in the interim, has plans to increase capacity to 65,000 tonnes through technology interventions that would require investments of a “couple of million euros”.

“With a small amount of investment (a couple of million euros), we can scale it up to 60,000–65,000 tonnes. We are here, and as the only top-grade producer as of now, we would be qualitatively growing and exploring the market to see what we could do next,” Giovanakis said.

The company, while in discussions with the government on capacity expansion, wants changes to be brought in for the company to take an informed decision.

“India is probably one of the only countries globally where there is no safeguard protection for electrical steel producers. Since there is no protection, we keep discussing with various authorities about the need to do something to make “Make in India” initiative successful. These are just some of the challenges that we have in the near future to make a really good business case,” said Joydeep Bhattacharjee, managing director of Thyssenkrupp Electric Steel India.

Giovanakis and Bhattacharjee said the company has been able to improve the quality of electrical steel being produced via technological interventions and will continue to do so.